


haunting

by 75hearts



Series: silmarillion drabbles [2]
Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Drabble, Gen, Introspection, Suicide, also he is guilty all the time and he's not.... wrong exactly, oh also this is amrod-died-at-losgar canon, so like, this is an exploration of maedhros' mental state from the second kinslaying until his suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-10
Updated: 2018-08-10
Packaged: 2019-06-25 07:17:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 912
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15635874
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/75hearts/pseuds/75hearts
Summary: He would have begged, if he thought it would have helped. It would not help, so he did not. Nothing would have helped, not with this, not anymore.





	haunting

“How many did we kill?” Amras had asked, after Doriath.

“And how should I have a better idea of that than thou would?” Maedhros asked, a threat lingering in his voice. He would have been unrecognizable to his younger self: clothes stained with the blood of innocents, glowering dangerously down at his little brother, scars crossing his skin. He had been called beautiful, once, but nobody called him Maitimo anymore, and it was not only because of Thingol’s ban.

Amras turned on his heel and left.

Maedhros stayed, listening to his receding footsteps.

_ At least two,  _ a child’s voice said in his mind.

 

-

 

The oath felt  _ hot  _ inside him. It was nearly unbearable to hold still. He had not felt such fire since his time in Angband. Maedhros wondered if this is how his father had felt all the time. He had been horrified, at Losgar, but now--now, he thinks he understands.

He dipped his left hand in cold water. It felt like nothing. He wondered, vaguely, why he still washed himself. It was not as though anyone would dare get close enough to him to smell him; and no amount of water would wash away the blood of his kin. Still he scrubbed at his skin, far longer than was needed. His hand turned red-raw and numb beneath the water; yet though he shivered the oath still threatened to burn him, and though all dirt had fallen away from him, still his sins clung to him, and would not be washed off. 

 

-

 

After Vingilótë rose for the first time, Maedhros was unable to sleep. He sat beneath the stars, and stared at the silmaril-light in the sky, and could not count how many had died--in Doriath, in Sirion--for that light. Even now he would kill twice that number to hold the star in his palm. He hated himself for it, but he could not stop. He was not even sure that he wanted to stop. 

Instead of stopping, he asked for a messenger to Eönwë. 

He would have begged, if he thought it would have helped. It would not help, so he did not. Nothing would have helped, not with this, not anymore.

 

-

 

He was looking up at Vingilótë on one of his sleepless nights when Macalaurë joined him. His brother’s voice in the dark startled him. “We should submit to them.”

“We are doomed already. We have been doomed for five hundred years. We have no choice but to keep trying.”

“If we try, we will die. We could not wrest a silmaril from Morgoth with hundreds of years and all of our best men; how dost thou propose to take one from those who defeated Morgoth, with little time and only two of us? No, brother, we have no hope now to fulfill our oath, and if we were to try now we should do naught but kill ourselves and drag our kin with us.”

“Did I say it would not be evil? To try now is folly of the worst kind; it is cruel and suicidal both. Dost thou think I do not know this? Yet this changes nothing.  _ We have no choice _ .”

“And if we had one, wouldst thou take it?”

Maedhros wished he could say  _ yes, of course _ . Instead, he spoke quietly: “Does it matter?” He paused then, and drank in the light as a man dying of thirst might drink water, though it was not enough. When he spoke again, his voice was stronger but no less pained. “We have no choice. We have not had any choice, for a long time. Do not torment me with yet more things I cannot have.”

“Thou ask me not to torment, but lead me down a road of torment. Or have you forgotten the blood we leave behind us, when we choose this road?”

“I have not forgotten,” Maedhros said. “I do not think I could ever forget; but I would not choose to, be it that I could.”

“I will follow thee,” Macalaurë said, “to the breaking of our oath; or to its fulfillment, if that is what thou commands of me.”

“I know,” Maedhros said.

 

-

 

Maedhros kills the guards without really thinking about it. It’s easy. He doesn’t feel anything, anymore, when his sword pierces them. He remembers that he used to.

Once, this would have been an unthinkable evil, a thing unheard of in the world. His memories of that time are bathed in the light of the Trees.

It has been almost six hundred years since then. It feels like much longer.

 

-

 

It all became clear when he held the silmaril. This darkness spreading on his hand was what he had been unable to wash off; this burning was the fire of his oath. He could hear Amras, in his memory:  _ how many did we kill? _ And now he knew it had been for nothing.

He could have cast it away, as Macalaurë did. But though it burned him he still wanted it, he had wanted it for five hundred years, and he did not know what he would be without the wanting; or else he knew truly that he would be nothing. Or perhaps he was still tied to his oath.

He took a deep breath, and thought then not of Amras but of Amrod. He jumped. 

The last thing he heard before the fire reached him was the sound of children.  _ Twins _ , he thought, and then he died.


End file.
